


booked the night train for a reason

by ungodlyravenpuff



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt, F/M, Marriage Proposal, Refusal, Song: champagne problems (Taylor Swift), Sorry Not Sorry, was suddenly inspired by Taylor Swift but what's new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 11:21:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30037914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungodlyravenpuff/pseuds/ungodlyravenpuff
Summary: Tears pricked the corner of Teddy's eyes, and he sat up straight in fright, glancing around the unusually spotless train compartment to make sure none of the exhausted passengers was looking at him. Booking a ticket on the night train had been a sort of jest, tomfoolery that he was sure he'd laugh about with Victoire later, once they'd had it all settled and were staring soppily at each other in that way only newly engaged couples tended to do.That he'd actually ended up using the ticket--this was a fever dream, a lucid nightmare. It had to be.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Teddy Lupin/Victoire Weasley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	booked the night train for a reason

Ted knew Ginny would never understand. Even after forgetting the fact that he was an adult now, he couldn’t go to her for advice and comfort like he usually did, couldn’t lean on her like they’d needed to all the times Harry was hurt from Auror duty. No, this was something his godfather’s wife—perfect, emotionally healthy, kind, and _married,_ would blink at, baffled, though with tears in her eyes.

So it had to be Harry.

Harry, who’d had a bedroom for him in his house since Ted was one, who gripped his shoulder painfully tight when he turned seventeen and promised him he was family, who still stared at his own wife like she hung the moon, whose eyes always went a little misty, unnoticed by Ginny, every time she laughed about the Prophet’s new assumption of Ms Potter’s “affairs”, as if he didn't take it for granted that Ginny would stay with him forever quite like she did. Teddy could trust Harry to understand.

He had pictured talking about this to Harry later—on their trip to Muggle London on Tuesday and lunch afterward—but that was a dream now, and he’d never get the chance to laugh uproariously with his godfather as they joked about how they’d bollocksed up this or that, but made it through.

Tears pricked the corner of his eyes, and he sat up straight in fright, glancing around the unusually spotless train compartment to make sure none of the exhausted passengers was looking at him. Booking a ticket on the night train had been a sort of jest, tomfoolery that he was sure he'd laugh about with Victoire later, once they'd had it all settled and were staring soppily at each other in that way only newly engaged couples tended to do. Ron had suggested it to him as a joke while drunk at James’ graduation party.

 _‘You oughtta get one of them late-night train seats, Teddy, mate,’_ he’d slurred, arm slung over Harry so the latter wouldn’t leave and start eing raondomly overtly affectionate to every friend in sight, as Harry tended to do while sloshed. ‘ _this one—’_ pointing to Aunt Hermione across the smoke-filled, crowded room— ‘ _always taught me to have a back-up plan.’_

 _‘Ah,’_ Harry had said, smiling broadly at Ted in a manner he had come to associate with pride, _‘what does Ted need a back-up for? He’sn’t gonna be weepy, ‘s he?’_

And yet, here he was.

 _When had it all gone wrong?_ He wondered. _At what point had the playful references and tentative questions started to make her uncomfortable?_

He could see the scene, even now—every time his eyes fluttered shut out of sheer exhaustion. The party, with all its fine wine and high heels and sleek gold furnishes, the mirth _her_ eyes held every time she glanced up at him over her flute. Her mischievous nod when he leaned over and said, _‘enough faffing around with your boss, let’s get out of here,’_ and the iron grip she kept on his hand as they giggled like teenagers, stumbling tipsily across the street, past several blocks, and into a diner.

Her favourite music had been playing. They’d danced at the party, but one look at her flushed face and he knew—he swept an exaggerated bow that made him blush to think of now, _what was wrong with him,_ and asked her if he might have that dance.

 _She'd acquiesced, too! and then—bollocks, the lot of it. The whole institution of marriage. It didn’t make sense._ They swayed around the diner for a bit, oblivious to the waitresses, and when the bulge in his trousers got too pressing to ignore— _the fun she’d have had with that wordplay, fucking hell—_ he’d popped out the box and sunk to one knee.

Suddenly her hand slipped from his, and his heart thudded against his throat, and he barely remembered he wasn’t saying it, that carefully prepared speech only authors ever attempt. He was too busy trying to decipher the reason all colour drained from her face, her stammered protests— _Ted-Teddy-I’m so sorry, I don’t-I can’t—_ but he was given only seconds to blink, barely seconds to stare in shock and begin the horrified internal monologue, mere seconds to stagger to his feet and realise he couldn’t follow her, before she’d rushed away, skirts swinging in her wake.

And now he sat in the very seat he mocked earlier, driven to question the point of contingencies when they left you feeling ripped open and bleeding and heartbroken anyway.

The disbelieving Daily Prophet readers and cynics who called him a spoilt brat at Hogwarts had been _right. Fuck them,_ he thought savagely. _Fuck everyone who can’t get that there are shit things besides war._

One of the passengers sitting across from him yawned, their mouth a gaping cavern exposed in that moment _just like she did when she yawned before bed_ , and it was like a shard of ice had been driven through Teddy’s heart. He wouldn’t get off this train tonight at will—he didn’t give a shit if strangers saw this blue-haired man looking dead inside as long as he didn’t have to go home, didn’t have to face the apartment, didn’t have to stay to see Sunday arrive for lunch at Nana Molly’s house.

 _Thank Merlin only Harry and Ron knew,_ he thought with dawning horror. _Gerard was fine, Gerard knew everything since Hogwarts. And how they both had celebrated with champagne in the office—_ His heart clenched. But fuck, if it got around to the rest of the Weasleys and Potters— _when_ it got around to their friends-

He knew, of course, past the physical heartache and the constant prickling in his eyes after he’d cried in the diner’s bathroom for half an hour, that it was statistically highly likely that he would do this again. He would laugh at a different girl above cups of champagne. He’d go on a new first date and then a hundredth date, in time. He would kiss different lips with a burning passion, thinking _youareverything._ He’d feel those same excited butterflies in his gut which he now longed for with all his being, as they were from a time he was yet unscarred by the loss of love. It was possible.

He pulled out his wallet, and stared at the picture of the young woman playfully batting her eyes at the camera. His whole body felt heavy, and his throat ached when he swallowed.

But right now, he didn’t care for different possibilities.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope this was as tragic as I felt while writing it--let me know if you'd like a part two!  
> Thank you for reading and please leave a kudos or comment, I thrive on valiation lol


End file.
